Russian diplomat comments on allegations of Russian interference in Western elections

A diplomat stresses Russia’s alleged interference into elections in European countries and the United States has exhausted itself as a topic

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MOSCOW, December 22. /TASS/. Russia’s alleged interference into elections in European countries and the United States has exhausted itself as a topic, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

"As for the endless talk about Russia’s interference into elections in various ways, be it alleged hackers or via media, just look how this topic has exhausted itself," she said in an interview with 60 Minutes program on the Rossiya-1 television channel. "At first, they spoke about Russia’s unequivocal interference. Then, they stopped focusing on the fact of interference starting to say instead, and [UK Foreign Secretary] Boris Johnson repeated it several time at today’s news conference, that this interference has missed its goal, has failed. Further on, they proceeded to discussion of the lack of evidence."

"So, it means that this topic is fading away. There is no evidence, it is obvious, and no one is seeking to insist on that. So, I think this is a waning topic as there is no evidence and the British foreign secretary once again said that," she said.

The topic of Russia’s alleged interference in elections in Europe and in the United States was raised at a news conference by Russian and British foreign ministers, Sergey Lavrov and Boris Johnson, after the Friday’s talks in Moscow. Lavrov stressed that there is no evidence to such interference. Johnson, however, said that there is a lot of evidence to the very fact of such interference, which has failed.